I just got this book in the mail. My question is to anyone else who has read this book, is this book a hard read? I have trouble reading books where the main characters deliberatly go out of thier way to hurt one another. Or ones with a great deal of sadness in it. I want to read this book but I am afraid to start this book if I am in the wrong frame of mind.

I read it eons ago, so I can't recall everything about it. However, with that said, I don't believe that the "hero" and/or "heroine" go out of their way to hurt one another. Also, as I previously stated, this was one of the great (IMO) "I did NOT see THAT coming" books I have ever read. :-) Enjoy!

This is one of my all time favorite books. Any emotional hurting that is malicious in nature comes from other family members. The husband and wife are actually very good to each other, or as good to each other as society will let them be.

I read the pair (with "Now Face to Face") years ago (and she's recently written a third to them), but they still stand out starkly in my mind as favorites. It is not a sunshiney, happy read, as others have noted, there is betrayal and the usual psychological warfare that tends to go on among females in this type of fiction, and the author pulls no punches -- people die, etc -- but the imperfect protagonist survives it all and is the stronger for it, which is what I feel makes it a good read. I also feel it leans a bit more toward historical fiction than romance (though there is plenty of passion and sex), the storyline just goes deeper than that and involves more politics.

It may help to know that the title is taken from 1 Corinthians 13, about how human nature often fails to perceive reality as it truly is, and the title fits the book: the protagonist's rose-colored glasses are broken, and she perseveres. This is not to say that it is Christian fiction, for it is not; simply that the author has delved a bit deeper below the surface than some more fluffy romance novels.